


Echoes of Home

by Look_Alive_Sunshine



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Dadza, Family, Gen, I wanted to write some sleepy bois being a family so I did, sleepy bois inc - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27368068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Look_Alive_Sunshine/pseuds/Look_Alive_Sunshine
Summary: He wasn’t sure when it had happened - when he’d first made the unconscious decision to label this group of people as his family, although he supposed it didn’t really matter when it had happened.After all it was as close to the truth as he could ever hope for.
Relationships: Dave | TechnoBlade & Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot
Comments: 16
Kudos: 205
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	Echoes of Home

Wilbur.

He sped through the city, tires screeching against the cracked tarmac beneath him, a cacophony of shrieking neon lights blazing past him as the wind he’d once loved so much ran through his hair. His feet hit the pedals, each time urging him to go faster, faster, and faster still - like the word had been etched into the lines of his very existence. 

Hat on his head and guitar strapped securely to his back. He remembers when the E string first came off, the devastation that had left him in, Phil had told him not to worry about it - that they could find another one, but something about that just wasn't right to him. It wouldn’t be the same, he supposed nothing would be - not anymore. In the end they’d come across some old wire that he’d whittled down and tuned until it almost sounded the same as those old forgotten echoes he loved too much to remember. He knew deep down that it would never sound the same, that nothing could be more than just echoes of the past, but it was nice to pretend. 

Even now as he sped through this city - the place he’d once called home, his mind was a constant chant of faster. Whether that was because he wanted to run or because he was in danger it was hard to tell. No matter where he went it felt like his skin was burning, a low deep chant of leave, leave because you feel trapped. It never mattered where he went though, he always longed for somewhere else. Maybe that was why he wanted to go faster - to try and escape himself and his mind and the thoughts of the past that plagued him.

He wondered if he’d ever be able to go fast enough, or if he’d continue to live his life at dizzying speeds - never stopping to notice all that he was missing. 

He thinks he might just want a place to call home

Phil.

Perched at the edge of a balcony sat a man with blond hair and a striped green and white hat. He liked the height, it made him feel freer, made it easier to look up into the sky and ignore the world around him. Pretend nothing bad had happened and that it was all going to be alright.

He knew deep down that it wasn't, not anymore, maybe it never would have been. It’s hard to tell if things were always going to turn out this way. 

He wondered occasionally if death would have been a better option, a more peaceful option. At first he thought it was a blessing that he had lived - now he saw it more as a curse. Oh well, no matter. There's no changing the past now is there? No point spending whatever time they have left with wasted what if’s. Wilbur liked to tell him that he hated the past, that he wanted nothing to do with it. 

He knew that wasn't true though - from the way he searched for days to find some sort of substitute for an E string, the way he tells everyone he hates his yellow jumper, yet wont go a day without it, how he’s always collecting little trinkets here and there from a time that was better, a time when things were alright. No, despite how many times Wilbur told them he hated the past, Phil knew that it wasn’t true. He just wished Will could notice this himself - or at least, stop running from the one thing he needed most. 

He edged closer to the verge of the balcony. Things had been the same for so long, until they weren’t. And even then it wasn’t any better. He was bored, maybe always had been.

He thought of the little makeshift home they’d made. Him, Wilbur, Tommy, Techno, Toby, - or Tubbo as he went by now, most likely his own little way of escaping the past. 

He thought of these people who were now labelled family in his head, smiled a little, and jumped.

Techno.

Upon a sofa not far from the balcony, in the same city Wilbur was now racing through, sat a man with messy hair that seemed to stick up in ways reminiscent of a crown, a tattered blanket draped over his shoulders a bit like a gown. The way he held himself was almost regal, radiating effortless power that he believed he didn't deserve. The blanket was pink, although it could once have been red - but after being washed a few too many times, or left in the sun for a bit too long, the red had become washed out and pink. 

He was staring mindlessly into a TV that hadn't been turned on, clutching a packet of stale crisps in one hand, the other hand resting underneath his chin. He was weak now, he didn't deserve to be looked up too. He had failed the people that had mattered most to him in the past. This was all his fault; the sadness, the pain, suffering. His fault for not being able to protect them all.

Perched against a wall stood a sword, an echo of what was once a great warrior. Covered in blood that was never quite his to spill, marred with a legacy of everything it could have been but never became.

His eyes were dark, with bags underneath that reminded any onlooker of caverns. He hadn't slept, not really, not since the night it all went wrong. He had been sleeping when it first happened, and so he vowed never to sleep again. Not until he was sure it was safe. He had a new family to protect now and he would rather die than let anything happen to them too.

Tommy.

In a park within walking distance of the apartment stood two boys, each clutching sticks in a mock fighting stance. In their heads they were warriors, fighting to protect the things they loved. In their heads they were the hero, in their heads they were strong, and able to stop all the bad things that had happened.

They were both well aware that they were too old to be having mock sword fights in what once was a park filled with laughter and joy, yet the two of them couldn’t bring themselves to care. It made them happy, which not many things did these days.  
With the stars going out one by one, and buildings crumbling into dust each day they supposed they deserved to have at least this bit of joy.

Tommy knew this was the end, that they were living on stolen time, that pretty soon this facade of a family and safety they had would crash and burn like the rest of the world had done, but that didn't stop the red hot rage from surging through him, the rage and the passion fought against him, unwilling to let go and watch him fall into a pit of inevitable tragedy. They were what kept him fighting, a delusion that they would have a chance.

It wasn’t fair, none of it was. Not on him, not on Tubbo, not on Phil, or Techno, or Wilbur. A thought had struck him the other day, one that had scared him a little, one that he didn’t like to dwell on all too much - and that was that if he could trade his entire life just so things could go back to normal, just so Wilbur would stop aching for the past, so Phil could be happy again, so Techno could believe he was worthy, for Tubbo to get to live out the rest of his life, he would do it in a heartbeat. He would trade his life in a second if it would bring happiness to the others.

Tubbo raised his head in a questioning glance, wondering why he’d stopped all of a sudden. 

He shook his head, raised his stick, and continued their battle. 

Phil.

They’d called him a genius once, someone capable of great things. In reality he was just bored, tired of living in such a stagnant life, wishing for something else, something other.

He’d built these wings to try and temper the urge to jump, to stop the caged bird that fluttered restlessly inside his heart, but nothing ever seemed to stop it. He reckoned he could soar a thousand miles and the bird inside him would still sing for more.

Even now as he plummeted headfirst towards the ground, wings just seconds away from unfurling, it wasn't enough. Maybe it never would be. Maybe this was what Wilbur felt when he expressed his desire to go faster.

The entire city was a ruin. The plants had either died out or grown to become monsters, the very few survivors had given up fighting them long ago, and simply let them reclaim the land that once belonged to them. It was almost ironic, the green, once his favorite colour, once meaning a fresh start, a new beginning, once meaning life, and yet here, where the green has been interweaved so intricately with the rubble that it was almost like it had been there the whole time - it stood for anything but life.

Every time he did this - every time he jumped from increasingly higher points in the city, he was always left with a nagging thought at the back of his mind; what if the wings didn’t open? Would he just fall and crash becoming a part of the number of casualties caused by the apocalypse. Would they find him? Would anyone miss him? Would he even mind?

Sometimes he thought the answer was no. No he wouldn’t mind all that much, plummeting into the ground and forgetting to open his wings, maybe cutting a few wires beforehand so that they couldn't open either way, shutting off his mind, stopping his boredom. But he couldn’t - wouldn’t. He had to look after the rest. That was his duty, and so it was what he would do. He wouldn’t plummet to his death, not as long as they were still alive. He loved them after all… this little makeshift family they had created out of the rubble of the city. The one part of his life that was never as stagnant as the rest.

Wilbur.

His jumper was yellow and he hated it. Yellow used to be such a happy colour, but there was no place for happiness anymore. Now, Yellow reminded him of cowardice - which was what he was, a coward. Even when the world had first started to end he made no effort to run, to flee, to save himself and the people he loved so much. He’d simply sat hunched over in a corner, earphones lodged deep into his ears to try and block out the screams of people and the crash of buildings. All he’d done was scrunched his eyes closed and cried. He hadn’t even wished for tomorrow, had simply sat and accepted the seemingly inevitable fact that this was the end - and so when he opened his eyes to a world so silent it seemed to scream out of every crevice, to a world that had died and left him breathing, he believed he was the last person on earth to deserve this, he should have died along with the rest, that was what he deserved, and yet it hadn’t been what had been given to him. And so now the yellow on his jumper was a mockery, screaming at him, reminding him each day of his cowardice.

He remembers the first time it struck him that the lights were still on for the sole reason that no one had been there to turn them off. Of course some had died, and some had run out of battery, and some had even fallen from buildings and lay scattered across and buried under rubble. Occasionally he liked to go around and try and come up with words out of them, his own little game, his own little distraction - a way to block out the past that caused nothing but pain.

He always collected the yellow ones - if they were small enough to be carried. He told himself he hated the colour, yet he couldn’t help the fact that once it had been his favourite. 

The sun seemed more washed out recently, like a candle just moments before it flickers out for the final time, burning at the very end of it’s wick. In a twisted way the neon yellow reminded him a little of the power, intensity and comfort that the sun had once brought, and lacked now.

The tarmac beneath his wheels was cracked and broken, pieces of rubble decorating the street, like a monster had been brewing uner there for far far too long, a monster that had finally escaped maybe, a monster that had toppled buildings, crushing people, twisting the song of his city into a melancholy tune of grief and destruction.

He remembers when he first found Phil, later accompanied by Tommy and Tubbo, and finally Techno. He’d nearly cried when they found the two boys huddled together in an uneasy sleep in the corner of a warehouse when he’d been hunting for supplies. They were far far too young to have to deal with this.

He remembers when Phil had first tried to talk to him, how the words that had come out of his mouth had just been meaningless broken shapes that hung in the air like a plastic bag off a tree, like the rubble he’d now grown accustomed too. They still got like that sometimes, but it was better now. After all, maybe he had finally found a place to call home, or at least, a place to pretend.

Maybe he’d be ok after all.

Tommy.

He was alright, or at least, maybe he would be. Even now as they fought with sticks he couldn’t help but notice the small smile and the tired yet determined look on Tubbo’s face.

After all, he had his best friend didn’t he? And back home he had a warrior, a guardian, and a friend that was more like a brother. And even if the world was ending, he was glad he could spend it with this bunch of damaged people that had become known as family in his mind.

He wasn’t sure when it had happened - when he’d first made the unconscious decision to label this group of people as his family, although he supposed it didn’t really matter when it had happened.

After all it was as close to the truth as he could ever hope for.

Techno.

This was home now, wasn't it? This building with a few too many windows, with the tarnished sofa and shattered counters, the TV that never seemed to display anything but static, and the makeshift beds in the other corner of the room.

This was home, and these people were his family. WIlbur with the slight obsession with collecting small trinkets, with his fascination with the battery run radio in the corner that occupied him for hours, changing channels trying so desperately to find a shred of something - anything from the past. Phil with his wings made out of metal and scraps from old cars and planes, who told everyone he was bored even though they knew that was simply a cover up for being sad, Tubbo with his ever optimistic eyes and laughter that would brighten their days, and Tommy with his red hot passion who vowed to protect everything and everyone.

And him, a fallen warrior who swore on everything he had ever stood for that he would protect what they had here, who would die a thousand times just so he could keep his family safe. Because that's what they were.

They were family.

And this was home.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked :) Sorry if anyone’s about OOC, I was tired and wrote this instead of doing homework. Anyway it’s the first thing I’ve written and liked since June. 
> 
> Feel free to comment - it really makes my day :)


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